Servant of Birds

by A. A. Attanasio

  Later, standing at the taffrail of the large ship that carried him out to sea on his way to the cold domain of his enemies, he ached with sorrow at watching the Holy Land descend into the vermilion morning sun, horizons of clouds rayed with dawn above the spires and towers of Acre. The soft air carried the sweet rot of market smells, fish, blossoms, and the dusty tang of the desert.

  Beside him stood the young Ailena Valaise, whom he had sworn to protect with his life. A long-nosed woman of sullen aniline beauty, she displayed a complexion of solitude that he had seen before in the faces of war orphans. Her candid eyes dauntlessly watched the shore retreat, and he wondered what thoughts occupied her—and realized only then and with a start how implacably, from this time forward, his survival depended on interpreting the silence around him.

  -/

  Rachel heard David groaning with seasickness below deck in his berth, and she ignored him for a moment to fill herself with a last view of the Levant. She watched the land fold its few bristly trees into the shoreline, the shore into the jumbled city, the city into the hills, and all into the purple shadow of the mountains.

  The silent desert with its huddle of gray forts stretched out languidly before her as the ship wallowed and yawed. The rowers turned her into the wind. Tyre gleamed to the north, the coastline stretching beyond as far as she could see. How small the world looked from out here.

  All of creation is a garden, she thought. The Holy Land is but a sandy fringe in a garden of forests and grasslands.

  The ship heeled upon the racing wind. Sails snapped out, and the bow hissed through the beryl sea. Spray dashed Rachel's cheeks, and she looked north toward the dark horizons of her destiny.

  God did not expel us from the Garden after all, she understood silently. He exiled us in the Garden and made it as wild as we are—a garden of wilderness.

  A Tree of Wounds

  The Grail is the spring of life—the womb—the vessel containing the promise of immortality—the receptacle wherein the constant cycle of death and rebirth takes place.

  Rachel Tibbon wakens with a start and stares hard into darkness, trying to remember where she is. Memory sifts back: She is Ailena Valaise, and this is her first night in her castle. She sits up and notices that the curtains of her bed are drawn and that the couch where Dwn sleeps lies empty.

  Fear tightens her body. Where has Dwn gone?

  Does the old woman doubt her? How could she have hoped to fool such a lifelong friend? The baroness had been mad with rage at her son—but perhaps she had been simply mad, befogged entirely beyond reason. If Dwn doubts her, no one will believe. She and David will be tortured to extract their confessions, and then stoned or burned.

  Rachel clutches at her bedsheets and brings to mind the golden chalice that carries the baroness' memories. The glimmer of the bright goblet leaks out into the darkness of the room, and she sees again, in the refulgent light of remembrance, Ailena’s withered body, her cobwebbed hair, and her knobby hands rasping incessantly together. "My lady—they know I am an impostor."

  Nonsense, the ghost whispers. The living do not know what they see—only what they believe.

  "Dwn is gone."

  She will return. Fear not.

  "I do fear, my lady. I fear for my life—and for my grandfather’s life."

  The ghost laughs silently, her thin hair and white robe blowing in an unfelt wind. You are dead already. Everyone is dead when they are born. Life is a dream, dear child. Don't you remember? Come now—after all I've taught you, you cannot pretend to be so innocent. Only death is real. Why else do the living pray to their saints? Why else would you turn to me? The living depend on the dead!

  Darkness rays through Ailena's silent laughter, and Rachel is alone once more, shivering in the lambent warmth of the summer night.

  -/

  Rachel drifts back to sleep and dreams of the shipwreck, which befell them only two days after leaving Rome. The pope himself had received them in the Basilica, and, to the proud joy of the Hospitalers who had accompanied her from Jerusalem, the Holy Father had embraced her and kissed her on both cheeks. With trembling fingers and traces of tears in his eyes, Celestine III had penned in his own hand the writ of authentication that confirmed the miracle of her rejuvenation.

  No doubt touched Rachel’s mind that the gale that swooped down on them off the coast of France arrived as God's punishment for duping the pope. That night, she had huddled in her cabin with her grandfather as the squall buffeted the usciere. Timbers squealing, the ship lurched among storm swells, and rats scurried from their hiding places. The wailing scream of the wind even smothered David's loud prayers.

  The cabin door had burst open, and Falan Askersund stood there. He grabbed Rachel by her arms, pulled her upright, and staggered out of the tilting cabin with her. David followed up the gangway and onto the rain-lashed deck. Black claws of rock reared out of thrashing mists, a Cyclopean landscape of exploding waves and shrieking wind.

  Several of the Hospitalers stood on the foredeck, swords drawn, hilts raised against the tempest, warding off evil with the crosses that had defended the Holy Land. The black sea indifferently towered above them and fell on the ship. Falan deftly hooked an arm around a rail post, and pulled Rachel tight to his side as the foaming water surged over them. Gasping and struggling, the Hospitalers flew by and vanished overboard.

  David had been hurled back into the companionway, and he emerged soaked, seeking desperately for his granddaughter. The Hospitalers appeared alongside the ship, bobbing in the raging channel until a massive comber hurtled them onto the rocks. Another great wave struck the ship broadside, submerging the deck, and the wash sucked David away. Rachel's cries flapped emptily in the slashing rain.

  With a tormented groan and shudder, the keel struck the reef. Oak timbers burst apart, and the deck tilted sickeningly as the sea flooded in. Muscles knotted, Falan strained against the cascading water on the sloping deck, carrying Rachel to the bow. Several men had lowered a smaller boat, hoping to ride the maelstrom to shore. But before all could reach the boat, it tipped over the side, and the current flung it into the rocks, shattering it to splinters and flying bodies.

  Rachel clung to Falan. Over his shoulder, she watched another breaker loom high above the ship and shouted to warn him. The howling wind swept her cry away, and the next instant, the great wave smote them. Like a giant's hand, it lifted them high above the ship. And the hungry sea received them.

  -/

  Again Rachel wakes with a sweaty shudder. Dawnlight stands in the tall, spired window, the river Llan glinting behind it, shimmering in a band of bright snake scales. She remembers where she is.

  Miraculously, the shipwreck had not killed her. She had regained her senses in Falan's arms, washed ashore with Gianni Rieti and his dwarf and monkey. Later, they found David floating on his back in the shallows, still alive. No one else survived. God's wrath had taken them all—and had left her and the few others alive for further torment.

  Sitting up in bed, Rachel can still see in her mind the wreck of the ship wedged fast among the black rocks, aswarm with local fishermen zealous for plunder. If not for Falan, they would have slit her throat for her gold signet ring. With Gianni Rieti's help, they found his Arabian stallion and two of the six camels still alive in the hold and got them to shore, together with Rachel's sea chests.

  David had wanted to dismiss the two surviving knights, take the small treasure in the chests, and make a new life in Provence. But too many had died to bring them this far, and for Rachel the voices began again with unabated relentlessness. She feared the ghosts of the drowned, afraid they would join the wraiths of her family to torment her all her days.

  Most impelling was the voice of the baroness: After seven years of training, Ailena would not give up. She clung to Rachel's soul, inflaming her with zeal to fulfill her bargain and claim her treasure. And even David had to admit finally that his granddaughter knew more about the living truth of the baroness than of herse
lf. So, with great reluctance, he submitted to the final, audacious act of their unknown destiny.

  Gingerly, Rachel steps out of bed, kneels before the largest of her chests, and presses her face to its carved lid before opening it. Inside lie carefully folded the baroness' silk and damask garments purchased in the Levant. Here, too, she has carried her grandfather's scroll of the Law, and the Bible, side by side with the pope's writ and the king's charter. Now that most of the gifts have been distributed, all that remain are a velvet-wrapped present for Guy, and five vessels of hardened red clay.

  The oblong vessels are the baroness' last gift to Rachel— grenades, hand-bombs the size of wine carafes purchased from the Saracens. Filled with the mysterious Greek fire, they wait to be ignited by burning the stubby fuses that plug their short throats. The baroness had thought them a useful gift to the alchemists at the king's court, should the occasion ever arise.

  Rachel takes out her present for Guy, a Seljuk Turk dagger with a gold-braided ivory hilt, a ruby-set crocodile skin scabbard, and a curved blade of the finest blue damascene steel. She unwraps it and holds it in her hand, feeling its lively heft. "Why such a beautiful and deadly gift for one whom you hate and who hates you?" Rachel had asked the baroness.

  The old woman had been close to death then, unable to get out of her bed, her skin shrunk close to her skull, yet she had laughed huskily at Rachel's ingenuous question. "You should know by now. You are almost me."

  Rachel, fingering the smooth hilt as she fingers it now, had answered, "He sent you out penniless and yet you return with a princely gift. A Christian gesture."

  "Yes," she had answered, satisfied. Her closed eyelids creased like walnut shells. "He must know that I love him. He is, after all, my only son. How can I really hurt him if he does not think I love him?"

  Rachel lays the knife back in the chest, frightened at the hatefulness of that memory. She stands and looks around at the bedchamber that, until now, has existed only in images woven by the baroness. The room appears smaller, the frescoes painted on the walls duller than she had foreseen.

  She presses her fingertips against the fresco of the stag hunt on the wall opposite the bed. The stucco feels dank, and the air smells mustier than she would have guessed. In the palazzos of the Levant, the rooms had been continually charged with sweet incense and the floral spices of surrounding gardens. Mildew taints the air here.

  Trailing a hand along the stone sill, she paces the breadth of the chamber. The space is as large as the baroness had said, yet it feels more confined. She winces, and shivers at the thought that this is the reality of her years of dreaming. Since the destruction of her family, she has lived simply as an observer, staring out at the world as though it were a desert mirage, obediently accepting Karm Abu Selim's trances. Now, those dreams have become real. Now, she must act. And that frightens her.

  Yesterday, the acting had been so well rehearsed, she did not have to think. Today—what will she do when the others question her, when decisions must be made?

  Panic chills her down to her viscera, and she sits on the bed and calls forth the golden chalice. Instantly, vividly, it appears in her mind; relief saturates her. Karm Abu Selim's sorcery still works. She can still escape Rachel by drinking of this magic goblet. The baroness' memories and her very spirit brim in her. Through the image of this aureate cup, she can die as Rachel and be reborn as Ailena all on her own—again and again.

  -/

  Dwn returns at dawn from her prayer of thanks to God at the shrine of her old home in the dungheap. She passes Falan Askersund in the passage, on his way to relieving himself in the privy. Quietly, she opens the door, hoping her mistress is still asleep, and she finds Rachel sitting on the edge of her bed staring dreamy-eyed into space.

  One of the sea chests is open, and sitting atop the garments is a wicked-looking dagger, a work of such intricate beauty that only the devil's children could have shaped it. With a soft knock, she enters. "Forgive me, my lady, for not being here when you awoke."

  Rachel turns about like a startled animal, searching the crone's face for any sign that she has been found out. When she sees that the old woman regards her kindly, she rises, summons forth the baroness' spirit, and presents the dagger. "For Guy. Will he accept it?"

  Dwn looks wary and does not touch the satanic instrument. "It is truly handsome, in its frightful way. It will appeal to him. But he is wroth at your return. You hit him hard when you struck the Griffin and flew the Swan. The miracle of your transformation does not move him."

  The old servant steps to the open chest and peers in. Her eyes widen at the sight of the delicate garments, and, with a gasp of pure joy, she kneels to touch them.

  "What will Guy do?" Rachel asks.

  "Certainly he will rally the men he's brought from Hereford. He'll not sit by idly, that much I know."

  Rachel kneels beside the old woman and clutches her thin, taut arm. Her features have become fragile with fear, pathetically young, delicate as frosted crystal. "Dwn, I am frightened."

  A surprised expression flits over Dwn's wizened face. She takes the young woman's hand in hers, rubs the smooth knuckles with her coarse fingers. "Servant of Birds, you have changed. Your heart has changed with your flesh. You have seen the Grail! You need never fear again, my lady."

  Rachel closes her eyes. "Of course. I am not afraid for my soul. The miracle has changed me—and I am afraid that I have lost the spirit to rule."

  "Our Savior sent you to rule in His name." Dwn's face quivers with puzzlement. "You saw our Lord. How can you ever fear anything again?" The old woman traces Rachel's lineaments with a quavery fingertip. Her amber eyes shine with awe. "You are a child again. You have the face of a child. I remember you well when last you had this face. Far more bitterness showed in it then than now. You have shed much ire with your years, sweet lady." She touches her own weathered face. "Do you remember how I looked?"

  Rachel blinks. The dark spur of hair on the old woman's chin is the cue the baroness had taught her to identify, if the old servant still lived. But she cannot bring forward any image of the youthful Dwn. She shakes her head. "I'm sorry, my friend. I'm far too anxious to look backward. I cannot take my eyes off today and tomorrow."

  The concern in Rachel's gaze troubles the crone. The baroness had never admitted to fear, even when her husband had beaten her to within an inch of her life. Dwn looks deeply into her face, trying to read what calamity her friend foresees. Awkward and perplexed, she then releases the soft hand and turns her attention shyly to the contents of the chest. "Show me the gowns you have brought from the Orient."

  The two women are sorting through the bright apparel when Guy appears in the doorway. His topknot undone, his lank black hair frames a furious countenance. All night long, he has sat in the stairwell, waiting for Falan to leave his post—ample time to nurse his rage at losing his Hereford mercenaries. Dressed in the same green cotta he wore at last night's feast, he stalks into the bedchamber. The Griffin device on his breast is dulled with the dust of the road. "How came you to wear my mother's signet ring?" he demands.

  Dwn screeches a Welsh imprecation at his intrusion and covers her mistress' dishabille with a blue samite cape.

  Rachel draws the cape about her and gently moves her servant aside with a reassuring nod. "Dear, dear Guy—my son—" She manages a cool smile though her pulse beat roars in her ears. "This is my ring." She lifts her hand to display the green chalcedony embossed with an ebony V.

  "Liar!"

  Rachel lifts her chin and fights to steady her voice: "Your faithlessness ill serves you, Guy."

  Guy strides across the chamber and presses close to Rachel, sensing her fear. A tremor touches her upper lip, and startled alertness holds her stare. "You are not Ailena. You are not even a good semblance."

  Facing Guy’s contemptuous sneer—with his pug nose and swarthy, pinched frown, he looks like a bat. Rachel thinks, This is the same brute who came in hundreds to Lunel to kill my family. The frost
shivering in her hardens to cold fire. All at once, she is not acting anymore. The baroness has departed, and Rachel watches him through her plundered and furious soul. When she speaks, iron edges her voice: "Get out of my chamber. Get out this very moment."

  Guy's mouth widens into a cruel grin, certain that this quivery young woman must be an impostor. Mother would simply have slapped him. "Who are you? How did my mother get you to come here and throw your life away on this laughable scheme?"

  Years of standing up to the shouts of the baroness and the magician during her desert training make Rachel set her jaw. Defiantly, she pushes her face close to his until she tastes the sourness of his breath, sees the filaments of blood tangled in the whites of his eyes. "You've not changed one wit, Guy. I had hoped you would be a more gentle man as you gained in years and experience. Why are you so loath to have your mother back?"

  "My mother!" Guy's face twists with derision. "Am I wearing cap and bells? Do I look foolish enough to believe you are my mother? Deceiver! God—if there is a God—permits even the sainted to suffer and die in famines and war. Why would He spare my mother, who was never good except to herself?"

  Dwn snaps, "You dare question God? You who have murdered the rightful people of this land?"

  "Shut up, old woman, or you'll join those rightful people."

  Rachel puts out an arm to hold her servant back. "God has spared me, for I need to undo what evil I have done."

  "Undo how? What are you going to do?"

  "I will address you when I address the other knights in the palais. Go there and await me."